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Gun smuggling, delayed justice plague Lethem, neighbouring communities
– USAID Report
Gun smuggling across the Brazil-Guyana border and the delayed access to justice are two of several issues that are plaguing Lethem and other neighbouring communities.
These findings were reported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The 2016 report, which is an assessment of Democracy, Human Rights and Governance, stated that serious crime in Guyana has become more ‘weaponized’ with the proliferation of guns manufactured in Brazil and brought into Guyana through the drug trade from Venezuela and Suriname.
The document stated that there is very little the Lethem police have been able to do to stem the flow of guns across the Brazil-Guyana border.
According to the international body, “The police need to be better resourced to deal with crime in the interior, and the unique challenges of law enforcement in border areas.”
Statistics show that crimes increased from 5,667 in 2013 to 14, 855 in 2014 including the number of larcenies, which rose from 2,898 to 12, 639.
The report noted that the lack of proper border security allows for illicit drugs to be trafficked into the country. Moreover, Brazilians enter Guyana, commit crimes in Lethem and then return to Brazil.
In 2014, then Crime Chief, Leslie James had said that most of the illegal weapons found for that year originated in Brazil. The reasons given were that Brazil is a large manufacturer of guns, its proximity to Guyana and the porous border that separates the two countries.
The organisation gathered this information based on observations and interviews conducted with key public officials and residents in the area. It noted too that another challenge in the area is the lack of mobility. Police have to rely on using vehicles of private citizens to do law enforcement.
Besides the prevailing criminal environment and the lack of resources to fight crime, the access to justice is stymied. The report said that hearings in the Magistrate courts in the interior districts are held every three months, as there is currently only one magistrate assigned to these courts. Making things worse, is that residents of these communities are a bit nomadic, which creates serious issues for the availability of witnesses to testify in court.
A Magistrate who was interviewed said that the court tends to receive the blame for the backlog in cases but he explained that lawyers who frequently request adjournments and prosecutors’ tactics of padding their witness lists which contribute to delayed justice and a clogged court system.
Additionally, the legal aid programme in Guyana does not extend to remote rural areas. As a result, persons are forced to pay for defence lawyers. Bail is recovered in Georgetown; however, most times the cost to travel to the city exceeds the amount of bail to be recovered, so persons do not bother to collect it.
It is expected that the new Magistrate’s court in Lethem with its registry and clerk will allow persons to make such recovery in the future. Nevertheless, Region Nine is a vast territory, and without infrastructural improvements, the most remote communities will still face hardships in accessing justice.
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